FA scores a win at last as Alam loses dismissal case

The clash between the 39-year-old personal assistant and English football's "blazerati" give rise to a catalogue of colourful revelations about her liaisons with Mr Eriksson, on the eve of the Euro 2004 tournament, and the then FA chief executive, Mark Palios.

In e-mails referring to Mr Eriksson as "Sugar" and Mr Palios as "Pretty Polly", she gave explicit details of England manager's sexual prowess. She also said her boss, the FA executive director, David Davies, sexually harassed her throughout her employment.

But the employment tribunal yesterday threw out Ms Alam's claims for constructive dismissal and sexual discrimination after lawyers for the FA claimed she had repeatedly lied to cover up affairs. The claim against Mr Davies, who is a former BBC Sport presenter, was also dismissed.

Mr Davies had expressed "astonishment" at the claims against him, which appeared to contradict a newspaper interview in which Ms Alam, who had been claiming compensation of about £30,000, denied her boss behaved inappropriately towards her.

In a statement, the FA said: "We have consistently viewed the claims as unsubstantiated and without foundation. We were therefore determined to robustly defend our position.

"We are delighted for David and his family. The allegations made against him were both hurtful and unfounded. We are extremely disappointed that these allegations were ever brought into the public domain, particularly when they had been expressly contradicted by previous statements from Ms Alam."

The tribunal hearing in June heard claims from Ms Alam that she was treated differently from Mr Eriksson when their relationship was exposed by her e-mails in the News of the World. In one she wrote: "Haven't been naughty yet, but the guy I will see tomorrow is the more famous one. Let's call him Sugar, he's very sweet and he's the coach."

The former model, whose family came from Bangla-desh, claimed she was aggressively questioned by senior FA staff about her relationships but the England manager's denials were accepted at face value.

The tribunal heard that Colin Gibson, the FA's director of public affairs, tried to broker a deal with the News of the World to expose Ms Alam's relationship with Mr Eriksson if the paper would keep her six-month fling with Mr Palios out of the public eye.

It was also revealed that Mr Davies had told a colleague that the £4m-a-year England manager had a "roving eye" and was a "seagull who can wrap his wings around people".

Mr Davies admitted Mr Eriksson could have shown "greater frankness" when he initially claimed the story about his affair was "nonsense". But the organisation refused to give in to pressure to call the Swede to give evidence, and answer claims that he had lied to an internal FA inquiry in which he insisted he had merely neither confirmed nor denied the relationship.

The tribunal was told Ms Alam had repeatedly denied the relationships to her employers and she was a gold-digger intent on exploiting her sex life for financial gain. She sent her resignation to the FA from the office of the publicist, Max Clifford, minutes after signing a deal worth £300,000 to sell her story to newspapers.

Mr Clifford said last night: "I've expected this. I told Faria she had no chance but she wanted to go ahead."

Ms Alam, who was not available for comment yesterday, has said she intends to move to America.